Thursday, February 28, 2008

Conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away this week and in tribute I am posting this picture I took with him during college while wearing a ridiculous slutty dress.* Buck and I met eight years ago during my sophomore year when he came to speak at a Yale Daily News banquet. Look how happy (horrified?) he looks to be so close to my décolletage!

I would like to point out that my dress was not originally this tight or this short. I wore it to homecoming in high school and ended up vomiting on my lap after drinking too much vodka. My mom threw it in the wash (I told her it was food poisoning) and it shrank. A lot. Stretchy faux velvet tends to do that. For whatever reason, when I put it on for the banquet, I did not realize or did not care how absurd and too small it had become. Self-awareness was never my strong suit.

This was the night I met my Main Gay, Chris, when we were seated at the same table during dinner. In fact, no one at our table knew each other so we sat there in uncomfortable silence for awhile until I broke the ice by asking, “Say, does anyone have any good urination/projectile vomiting stories?” It’s a great ice breaker because, let’s face it, everyone has one. The table instantly came alive. Everyone started talking at once. One guy recounted the time he was at a dorm party and had to hurl really badly so he ran into the bathroom, threw open the stall door and vomited everywhere -- to the dismay of the girl who was sitting there dropping a deuce.

Chris told the story of the time he’d been walking past Yale’s Casino Night – one of the most formal dances of the year -- and saw a girl in a gorgeous gown leaning up against a wall while her friends chatted a few feet away. As Chris looked on, the girl suddenly threw up all over herself. Unaware of what to do, she turned to her friends and (in a rather genius move) suddenly yelled, “You guys! Some guy just threw up all over me!” and her concerned friends rushed over going, “Oh my god! That’s terrible!”

Soon we were pounding the table with laughter, and all the other dinner guests were looking over at us in alarm -- including Buckley, who was speaking at the time. But he was a good sport and agreed to take a picture with me afterwards anyway. After the banquet we all alighted to a party in J.E. where there was a stripper pole set up in one of the dorm rooms. Obviously, there was some vodka that night as well.

R.I.P. Buck! I will treasure this picture always! And I will never wash this dress again. If I did, it would probably disappear entirely.

*I’m blocking out my face because it’s a highly unflattering photo and while I have no problem posting old humorous slutty pictures of myself, fugly pictures are no laughing matter.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

My college roommate Amanda just texted me: “So I'm reading a trashy mag on the exercise bike and they asked celebs what tattoos are they glad they never got? Jenna Jameson said ‘I almost got Hello Kitty on my wrist but then I thought, how am I going to explain this to my grandkids?’ And I thought, 'that’s what you’re worried about explaining to your grandkids?'”

Thursday, February 21, 2008

I’ve always had a violent reaction to the meathouse franchise name Ruth’s Chris Steak House. What the hell does that even mean? How does one have a “Chris” steak house? Since when is Chris an adjective? What makes you so special, Chris??? My girl Skyler and I recently delved into our ex archives and determined that between the two of us, we’d dated nine Chrises over the years and all of them sucked. This led us to make the sweeping generalization that all Chrises are terrible. See, the equation goes like this:

Christ - Chris = T. Therefore: T minus Christ = negative ChrisSo if T equals time, between now and the time of Christ, the world has consisted of negative Chrises. One might even say that they are the Anti-Christ. Especially if you’re me, you would say that.

Listen, I don't make the rules. If you don't believe me, check out this website for the Ruth's Chris Steak House in Toronto with the disturbing sound of sizzling meat playing on a loop in the background. If that's not the very sound of Hell, you need to revisit the Book of Revelation, friend.

My brother Jeff had this to say about it: “I think everyone understands that name to be fundamentally wrong and upsetting. It's the unspoken thread that holds modern American culture together.”

I've always enjoyed graffiti. Ever since I found myself studying zoning out in the Yale library one night, staring at a scrawled message on my cubicle which read read "I SPOOGED ON THIS WALL!!!"

I especially like the term "defacing" because it sounds like something a Batman villain does to one of his victims before bringing him over to work for the dark side. (ie. And then The Penguin had the man's face melted off. He had him defaced! That way he could carry out The Penguin's crimes without being identified!)

You know who else likes graffiti? Those who frequent the F/V subway station at 23rd Street and 6th Avenue. Their latest installation involves posters for two reality shows: The Millionaire Matchmaker and Top Chef.

They kept it simple with Top Chef, choosing to focus on our bearded fellow on the right. The graffiti artist provides him with a thought bubble reading: “I’d rather be in Williamsburg…” Whether or not this is true, I don’t know. What is clear is that he will later end up locked in the walk-in freezer and left for dead by the man wielding the rolling pin. (Before we go, is Padma Lakshmi the most useless of all the reality eye candy hosts? I think so.)

The graffiti artists were not so kind to our peeps at The Millionaire Matchmaker, where our white suited friend stands brandishing her cupid’s bow made of empty promises. The Matchmaker’s cleavage has been Perez Hilton'd. Her teeth now indicate her to be from somewhere where the homes are on wheels. Someone has tagged her hair. The man on the right has literally been defaced.

But please direct your attention to the lady in red on the left who is blowing a kiss at the three gentlemen across the poster. A green peen has been lovingly crafted – more or less to scale -- near the woman’s mouth. I'm not sure what it was made out of. It may be boogers. Tis the cold season, after all.

Oh, Defilers of 23rd and 6th, is nothing is sacred? Not even women who go on television to find with rich men to support their red tube top habits? Great color by the way, it really pops against their message of gold-diggery. Not that I’m judging. (Call me, guys.)

Something happens to me whenever I go on TV. I get so nervous that my heart starts pounding and I feel like I’m going to throw up a herd of butterflies. This happened last week when I went on an entertainment television show to talk about Heath Ledger. Afterwards I called up one of my gays to commiserate.

Gay Friend: “How did that TV appearance turn out?”

Me: “I was so nervous that I could actually hear my heart beating while I was sitting there being interviewed. I could barely even hear the anchor's questions! And it was beating so fast that I wondered if I was going to have a heart attack. I thought, ‘Ohmigod, what if I die right here live on the air while I’m talking about the death of Heath Ledger? Then they’ll have to bring in another talking head to commentate on my death in some sort of meta-segment with one of those terrible names like ‘The Death of Gossip’ or something.”

Gay Friend: “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Noelle. No one’s going to be commentating on your death.”

Meanwhile, Cuba's HR Department continues to remind Fidel that he won't get his last paycheck until he turns in his official letter of resignation.

My friend from college, John Phillips, is a screenwriter and performs in the sketch comedy group Trophy Dad. He’s one of those people who is so quick-witted that you can throw anything at him and he instantly comes back with a couple of hilarious one-liners. Here’s what he had to say when I emailed him to ask “What do you think about Castro stepping down?”

-- Castro may be stepping down, but his beard is staying in power.

-- Wasn’t Castro rumored to have tried out for a professional baseball team or something? Maybe he’s retiring from politics to pursue his major league baseball career full-time again? I mean, he is still younger than Roger Clemens.

-- Now that Castro is retiring, he can return to his former position as one of the corpses in the "Thriller" video.

-- Finally the CIA can end their covert operation to put LSD in his adult diapers.

-- Reportedly Castro's main reason for stepping down was to focus on his new one-man step-dance show, "The Bay of Jigs.”

Monday, February 18, 2008

This morning I woke up, showered, got dressed, made by bed, fed my parakeets and was on my way out the door to go to work when I looked down at my cell and realized it was 4:30 in the morning. I lay back in bed for an hour and a half until it was time to really get up. During that period I dreamed that I went to my office and found John Krasinski -- who in my dream, worked at my office -- using my electric toothbrush. Then we had a shootout and killed each other and then our ghosts went vacationing in the Mediterranean with Lindsay Lohan, who was pissed because the ocean was full of sharks and she couldn’t go swimming. Honestly.

My brother did something similar at the age of 12 after deciding to take a nap after school. He woke up at 7 p.m. and thought that he’d slept all the way till 7 a.m. so he jumped on his bike and started pedaling to school. Only when he noticed that the sun was going down and not up did he realize his folly. At the time I’d told him that he should have just kept pedaling to school because he obviously needed to hit the books a little harder if he was that retarded. Now the ’tard is I. And while I may be smarter than a 5th grader, 6th grade was apparently pushing it.

When I say that I spent yesterday afternoon at Forever 21, I mean that I spent yesterday afternoon at Forever 21. To give you an idea of how long the line was, that mirror at the back is where the cash register is located. While I was waiting, it occurred to me that Forever 21 is an appropriate name for the store because only someone 21 and under would stand in a line this long for anything. (Well, and me. I'm obviously part of the problem.) In retrospect, I should have shouted "Omg, did you hear?! It's open bar at Marquee right now!" and then jumped to the front of the line after they all stampeded out.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

A commenter writes: i secretely met my gf of 8 months on match.com and we both haven't told a soul. you need to do a posting about match.com. we're living a huge lie.

Never did match.com although I checked out eHarmony.com a few years ago. I got to the survey with the 400 personal questions and thought, “If I was self-actualized enough to know the answers to these questions, would I really be on your site looking for someone else to fill the empty intimacy-starved vortex inside of me?"

Then I went back to watching Law & Order. If you’re going to stare into the abyss, it helps to have Sam Waterston’s soulful browns staring back at you.

Monday, February 11, 2008

P.S. Dig the green Gamma rays of death coming out of the kitty's eyes in the top photo. You can almost hear it saying (and for some reason I imagine it speaking in the voice of Stewie from Family Guy ) "Away with you! Away with you, woman!"

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Writers Guild of America West president Patric Verrone announced this weekend that the writers and producers have reached a tentative deal. It reminded me of an email exchange I had with my friend Mark a few months ago.

Me: I know this is weird but whenever I see the name Patric Verrone I picture Ben Vereen.

Mark: Haha. That's not weird at all! Though it would be cool if Ben Vereen were negotiating. The strike would be over in days.

Friday, February 08, 2008

The scene: Fashion Week. Backstage at the Peter Som show on Monday, a member of the designer's team dubiously looks me up and down.

Man: “You’re not in the show are you?”

Me: “No, I’m a reporter.”

Man: “Oh good. Because I was going to say, ‘Girl, you have GOT to do something with that hair!’”

I think the problem is that I did try to do something with my hair a few weeks ago. I went for side-bangs but it ended up a little..bifurcated. Now I feel like I have a split-level home on top of my head. Luckily, my hair is really thick so there’s room for the entire Brady Bunch, Alice and her girlfriend. (Oh, like you didn’t know.)

Thursday, February 07, 2008

LOS ANGELES - Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss was arrested Thursday on charges of illegal possession of prescription drugs and driving under the influence, authorities said.

[...]

Fleiss, 42, and a passenger in the car, John Owen, were found to be under the influence of a controlled substance, the sheriff’s office said. Fleiss had prescription medication but could not produce a valid prescription, the sheriff’s office said.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Dude, I got such a good cross this year. Clearly defined, good consistency and extension. It’s always a toss-up on Ash Wednesday as to whether you’re going to get a good cross. Sometimes it’s just a smudge and then for the rest of the day you have to hear, “Hey, you have some dirt on your forehead!” In the past I’ve even hit the bathroom afterward and tried to make it more cross-like, probably violating at least 10 tenets of the Catholic Church.

This year I went to St. Patrick’s, conveniently located next to my office, where there were four men of the cloth to choose from. The third priest from the left seemed like a safe bet. “Oooh, I want that one,” I thought. “He looks like he gives good ash.” He didn’t disappoint.

If only I could have had him design my cross two years ago when I had to take my work ID photo on Ash Wednesday. That priest's heart was in the right place but he was a little short on the follow-through. I probably shouldn’t critique my crosses, but hey, I’m shallow. As I was reading my Lenten Regulations pamphlet on the way out of the church, I said to myself, “I almost forgot that I’m supposed to fast today. Oh well, it’s Fashion Week. It’s not like I’m eating anyway.”